“They went through so many scrapes – just escaping before the opposing forces moved in… the tension never let up.” Columnist ROBERT MACKLIN says the TV drama The Americans has an ending that might well throw a piercing light on the dilemma we face today.

It’s rare to find a fictional TV series that is both historically accurate and utterly addictive. 

Rarer still does such a program have an ending that might well throw a piercing light on the dilemma we face today.

It’s a big call, I know, but we’ve just finished the sixth season of The Americans and it comes awfully close to filling the bill.

It is not one for the kiddies. There’s quite a lot of rumpy-pumpy in a variety of beds in the Washington DC area. There’s also a murder rate that would give Agatha Christie a run for her money. But unlike Agatha’s discreet departures, the deed is invariably on screen and in stark detail.

It stars two breathtakingly good actors I’d never heard of – Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys. And the storyline is even more unlikely, coming as it does from a front-line American production company.

Keri and Matthew are Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, a thoroughly pleasant young couple with the regulation two kids, Paige the elder daughter and Henry two years younger. They live in a very nice neighbourhood and run a travel agency in the American capital.

In reality, they are Russian-born KGB Agents spying for the Soviet Union. And by coincidence, an FBI agent Stan Beeman moves in over the road with his nice wife and gay son, Paige’s age.

It’s set in the 1980s of Ronald Reagan’s presidencies when the Soviet leadership changed from Leonid Brezhnev to former spymaster Yuri Andropov to the terminally ill Konstantin Chernenko until in 1985 when the controversial Mikhail Gorbachev stepped up. 

Until then, Elizabeth and Philip had been wreaking havoc on behalf of the KGB “Centre”. He had even seduced and “married” the secretary of Stan’s FBI boss while Elizabeth had a running affair with the boss of a Communist gang of toughs. Both were amazingly talented make-up artists and changed identities via an astonishing range of wigs and beards almost daily.

But here’s the thing. The scripts were so brilliant that every viewer was on their side! Stan was so dumb he couldn’t see through them, and they went through so many scrapes – just escaping before the opposing forces moved in, silencing others just before they spilled the beans (often in a most grizzly fashion). The tension never let up.

Then young Paige got religion and told her Pastor Tim the true story of mum and dad. “Oh, no!” we thought. “How could she?” Luckily Tim was a self-important chap and kept their secret. But they used “Centre” to get him a job in South America anyway.

By now we were taken inside the KGB’s Washington office and FBI Stan had fallen in love with honeypot Neena, the gorgeous secretary of the KGB boss.

But so had the boss’ own deputy and that sub-plot would come together with the progressive alienation of Philip and Elizabeth. He was fed up with the job and quite liked America. She was still hooked on Russia. 

Stan was finally getting suspicious of the neighbours who for years had been charging about late at night killing people.

It’s at this point that the viewer is encouraged by more brilliant scriptwriting to change horses and barrack for Philip and boo Elizabeth who is trying to get cute little 17-year-old Paige to join the KGB. And when the forces of Russian decency are suddenly fighting the old-style “Centre” over Gorbachev’s policies of Perestroika, the battle is on.

I won’t spoil the ending for you. But history tells us that eventually the KGB murdered their way to victory for Vladimir Putin. Not very long afterwards an American, Donald J Trump came to Moscow in 1987 with an insatiable lust for women and real estate. He was sponsored by the KGB. 

Only after that did he develop an interest in politics.

robert@robertmacklin.com